virgin america

Next year should still be the real test, with American Airlines and Virgin America inaugurating service, plus a new entrant called Row 44, but JetBlue is trying to hustle ahead of them all. We've posted about this before, but this latest move is yet another sign that it might actually be happening. The company will be offering limited Internet access on a flight from New York to San Francisco next week. How limited? Well, fliers will be able to check email if they've got one of two Blackberry models, or they can use a laptop to access their Yahoo! mail. General web-surfing, though, will be barred. Still, we're hoping it works. Even an hour off-line is just too much to bear.-Gregory Mone

I recently flew Virgin America, the new airline from Sir Richard Branson's Virgin group of companies. The airline is targeting the young and tech-savvy—power outlets adorn every seat; purple "mood lighting" attemts to makes your plane feel like the inside of a downtown lounge; and personal entertainment centers in the seatbacks let you play anything from DirecTV Dish Network (free), a good selection of movies ($8 each), or recent episodes of TV shows like 30 Rock ($2 each). You even order your food and beverages—paid for, like everything else, with a credit card swipe—through the entertainment center's touchscreen.